


I Take the Parts That I Remember (and Stitch Them Back Together)

by rusting_roses



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-23
Updated: 2011-09-23
Packaged: 2017-10-24 00:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rusting_roses/pseuds/rusting_roses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I take the parts that I remember, and stitch them back together</i>. A series of vignettes of Parker and Eliot—their hopes, their family, and their love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Take the Parts That I Remember (and Stitch Them Back Together)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hollow_echos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollow_echos/gifts).



> It can't have been three years already, can it? I'm pretty sure it's got to be twice that. Or maybe half that? Three quarters? Or maybe just three-eighths, a dash of craziness, a splash of late nights, a sprinkle of hilarity, drinking, nerdiness, and absolutely more amazingness than we should be able to collectively stand. This is for the fandom, for the wit, for the freak-outs, for the thesis, for the poems, for the laughter—and just a little for the hangover. Happy Birthday, [](http://hollow-echos.livejournal.com/profile)[**hollow_echos**](http://hollow-echos.livejournal.com/)!!!!!

It all came down to music.

The universe was made of it, after all. The endless rolling cymbals of hydrogen being turned to helium being turned to lithium at almost fourteen million Kelvin at the core of the sun. The fluted whisper of solar winds as nebulas swirled in darkness and gave birth to stars. The low and heavy bass beats of a pulsar's electromagnetic radiation that echoed in waves across space. A supernova's brassy trumpet, a binary star system's smooth piano, a black hole's roaring timpani.

The galaxy itself was a symphony, a concerto, a requiem and a magnum opus as it ponderously wheeled against the greatest of expanses.

And beneath it all, the hair-thin whisper of the universe's smallest violin, making string less a theory and more a shiver against skin.

There was a certain, delicate vibration that locks made when Parker touched them, when she coaxed their secrets out of their cool metal skin. They sang against her senses, the purest soprano she'd ever heard. It made Parker think of the way people described needing to do a certain work, and she grinned, letting her calling fill her up from the inside out. She opened her body wide to it, letting the beats of the safe begin where her heart ended.

Rappelling too, that was all a viola's low hiss of steel and rope and the wind rushing in her ears, screaming past her with the endless rumble of a French horn, exhilarating against her bared skin. Money might smell like power, and jewels might taste like safety, but she defied the demands of the Earth and let the air whisper in its muted voice about everything she'd be able to do at its heart with her team at her back: steal hope, snatch dreams, filch knowledge, nick security, seize the future.

Eliot turned the clash of augmented fourths and half steps into clean resolution by any means necessary. He knew how to catch skin on skin, how to move in time with the chords, how to make anything around him a part of the battle. There was a reason why so many fighting styles relied on the dance, on the beat, on the smooth transition from key to key—from movement to movement, a never-ending shift of warm muscles and bones.

He counted the rhythm of the fight in his head, breathing through it, or maybe with it. His heart was there too, pounding out andante or allegretto or rubato or vivacissimo with a perpetual steadiness that both frightened him and reassured him; that he still had won against all odds. Still, it was hard to resist the way the rich cello cadence of his blood carried him even when he was dripping notes on the floor; he knew this, knew it inside and out and like the back of his hand, knew what was coming before his opponent, or maybe his stand partner, had even the barest inkling.

Of course, there was _them_ too, the hitter-and-thief, the chef-and-artist, the bloody-and-bruised, the wild-and-child, the always-and-forever, the black-and-white of notes on paper, playing for all they were worth on each other's souls. They turned caresses into a ringing bell, a glance into a mournful sax, and gasped into each other's skin like they were a galaxy of their own, pulling the full orchestra down with them, the conductor's baton falling from his hands as he watched them smile.

They let the music shiver against their skin.

~*~

  
After the job was over, the war began.

What they did was never an easy job, never a safe one—all of them knew that the next job might end with a bullet in the head, bleeding out in a corridor, beaten, threatened, stabbed, tortured, _hurt_ in one of the hundred thousand ways that humans had discovered made people scream. It took a certain strength of will to say one more, one more, one more, to give people they'd never met what they needed.

None knew this more so than Eliot and Parker.

Hitters were made to fight, yes, but they were also made to be broken, were made to be taken apart piece by piece until the pieces didn't fit any more. Thieves were made to steal, yes, but they were also made to hide themselves away, were made to take their strained muscles and contorted bodies as payment for their craft.

They wore their wounds like a badge of honor, a purple heart, ready and willing to take another cut, another ache, another drop of blood to keep the others safe.

So it took a silent war to heal them.

They could not ask for aid, could not accept clean fingers on dirtied skin, on aching muscles, on bloodied wounds. They took their pain for themselves, binding it tight, the only bandage they wanted.

So they waged war against each other, turning every moment into a pitched battle, forcing each other's hands, stealing each other's prides, taking what they knew the other could ill afford to offer, giving each other what was so desperately _needed_ —the acceptance, the gentle touches, the kisses on bruises and only the occasional tear falling on skin. They healed each other's hurts, the ones on body, mind, and soul alike, and thanked each other without words even as they raged against each other.

Eliot came in, eyes shadowed, hand covering a bloodied arm. Parker looked at him, chest thick with all the things that they wanted to say—and then sighed, and went to get the needle and thread.

~*~

  
Eliot wondered, sometimes, what Sam Ford would have been like.

He wondered, sometimes, vaguely, if he would have had Nate's enjoyment of sarcasm, if he would have had Maggie's laugh. He wondered whether he'd be able to match Nate's mind or Maggie's wit. He wondered what parts of him would be all Sam's own, forged by the boy's own temperament and spirit. He wondered, sometimes, about all of the might-have-beens in the form of a child's unmarked skin and unscarred mind.

Eliot thought that Nate had probably been a good dad.

He knew Nate, after all, in the before days—before Nate got that lost look in his eyes, before the glass tumbler had been his constant companion, before Nate was raw and bleeding from a dozen wounds that he'd refused to let get cleaned, stitched, healed. The after Nate was tempered by fire and ice, when before he was the earth itself, immovable, implacable, impenetrable.

Eliot had, over the years, done his best to parse down his world; to make sure that the only things he could lose were the physical ones, the easily replaceable ones. When he was younger, before he'd made his promise to a girl who he'd thought wanted him and to his country who he'd known needed him, he'd been much the same. It was safer, that way, an old habit.

After all, if you didn't have things, there was nothing for people to take. When Dr. Seuss books and stuffed animals and macaroni pictures were a liability, it was easier to just let them go entirely. There was a freedom in that, in giving them away before they could be stolen from you by too-big hands and a too-strong body in the place that should be the safest one in the world. It was better to hoard knowledge instead, to know how to hit to make it hurt, to know how to turn the ordinary into a weapon, to defend those who couldn't help themselves with a look, a touch, a breath.

Even after all this time, though, Eliot hated when it was children. He hated when people looked at kids like they were deaf and dumb, like they weren't there at all, like there were more important things in this world than the feel of unscarred skin against your own. He hated when they were left behind, hurt, in pain, terrified, helpless. He hated when they felt helpless. When they _were_ helpless.

He thought, sometimes, that was why he stayed with Nate, even when driven to the point of murder himself. Nate got it—and sometimes, he got that old look in his eyes when he looked at them. His team. His family. Like Heaven and Earth couldn't move his mountain.

Nate was still a pretty good dad.

~*~

  
"What'cha doing?"

Parker didn't startle, not as such—she was far too aware of her surroundings for something like that—but she did certainly freeze for a split second. Then the kid plopped down next to her, all dark eyes and darker hair, cute and innocent in the same way that bunnies, or ducklings or baby dinosaurs were. A grubby hand grabbed her wrist as the little boy leaned forward, peering curiously at the sketch book in her hands.

"Drawing," Parker told him, even though he'd obviously already seen for himself. Then, feeling vaguely guilty, she gestured to the Brewer fountain in front of her, at the flowers and general busyness that pervaded the park as it so often did in the rare warm fall weather.

"Why?" he asked curiously, simply.

Parker frowned at that, smoothing out a charcoal line with her pinky. "Because Eliot told me I was driving him crazy, and I either needed to go outside to get tossed out the window." At the way the kid's mouth dropped open, she hastened to add, "But it's okay, I'm pretty sure he'd have tossed me out the window that has the awning underneath it. It's only a two-story drop." His eyes got big, and she clarified, "It's fun, really, and I promise he doesn't toss people out of windows. Well, not often, at any rate. Not unless he has to. He says it's too messy, and...um..." she trailed off and then said, a little desperately, "Do you draw at all?"

Silent, the little boy shook his head, still looking a little frightened. "Oh," Parker said, then, "Crap. Oh, wait, don't tell anyone I said that in front of you." She smiled a little maniacally as the kid started to inch away from her. "I started drawing when I was about your age, you know. They always let me get markers and crayons and colored pencils, in the beginning. They thought it would keep me out of trouble." She laughed a little at that, then sobered. "But it was still fun, you know? I liked green a lot. It was always the first one that I ran out of. It reminded me of spring." She didn't say that it reminded her that she'd survived another chilling winter, wishing for a smidgen of warmth throughout those long, cold months. Instead, she asked, "What's your favorite color?"

He turned his face up to her, breaking out into a smile. "Orange!" he declared. He was missing a lower tooth, and he scooted a little closer to her on the bench so he could better see how her drawing compared to what was in front of her. "You draw good," he finally proclaimed, looking pleased with his pronouncement. "My mommy draws too, sometimes. But not as good as you."

Parker couldn't help looking down at him, smiling herself before she murmured conspiratorially, "I wouldn't tell her that if I were you."

He shook his head, still staring down at the image enviously. Parker watched as he reached out, never quite letting himself smudge the dark lines. "Just like I'm not supposed to tell mommy when we stop for ice cream on the way back from—" he cut himself off, looking guilty. "Don't tell mommy!"

Parker laughed this time. "I promise. I—"

"Michael Ross, you are _never_ to run off like that again!" Hands plucked the kid from the seat next to Parker, whirling the boy around; the man could have been the boy's elder brother, with the same dark features and brilliant smile, if not for his age. He lightly tossed him in the air, pretending that he was going to drop him before clutching him close. More to himself than anyone else, "Dear Lord, you stop to tie your shoelace and it's like the gates of Hell have been opened."

Parker watched it all with a studied indifference, until the boy's father—or at least, so Parker assumed—caught sight of her and gave her a surprisingly shy smile. "I'm sorry if he was bothering you, I look away for one moment, and..." he trailed off, deftly keeping the squirming Michael in his arms.

Parker thought of all the things she could say, and ripped out the drawing, scrawling _Parker_ the lower corner. "Since he seemed to like it," she stuttered nervously, and waited until Michael reached out and grasped the drawing before shoving her things in a bag and running off along the edge of the fountain.

~*~

  
It started at something of a joke, really.

A chef's hat just after his stint as one when they planned the mob boss's daughter's wedding, complete with apron and oven mitts. A skullcap once they'd faced the mixed martial artist. A baseball hat—and the sandwich he'd named after him—after he'd made the mistake of mentioning the sport at all. A fisherman's cap, complete with the world's ugliest bait hooks.

Seriously, Eliot had _no idea_ how someone could have looked at that particular shade of eye-searing orange, toxic green or a pink so hot it practically vibrated and thought, "I think I should buy these."

That at least, put Sophie out of the running as to leaving them. All teasing aside, she'd never dream of purchasing something so spectacularly hideous. The mere idea would have offended her on a personal level. Nate couldn't have been leaving them either, or so Eliot thought. Nate had his own dry, quirky sense of humor, but this didn't match it. He'd have seen it as a waste of time, to break into Eliot's home for the sole purpose of leaving the offending hat on the table when he could find a way to give it to him before the job even started.

That left Parker or Hardison. Eliot couldn't put it past either of them; Hardison had the talent to crack Eliot's security and just enough foresight to send one of his mechanical gizmos out in front of him to trigger the more physical of Eliot's defenses. Parker had the talent to completely avoid any and all of Eliot's security regardless of the technological or material means he used to try and stop her.

He tried to keep it simple at first, with video cameras—he bought them under an alias he _knew_ none of the others knew he had, since he'd destroyed the physical and the technological trail himself. The next day, they were sitting in a pile on the kitchen table along with a set of earmuffs. Eliot tacked the earmuffs up against the wall and spent an hour throwing knives at them. Of course, the game was up then; they knew that he knew. He tried rearranging all of the security next, calling in a mild favor or two to re-haul his entire system in half a day's time and setting up at least four traps that would trap Hardison, at least, for a couple of hours; Eliot would put no limits on Parker's ability to get out of even the most clever of traps. Still, if the traps were triggered and his makeshift cage empty, that would tell him just as much.

That too, failed, though that didn't entirely surprise him, and that evening he came back from the butcher shop to find an almost exact twin to the one he'd worn in the murder-mystery mansion. Then it was a farmer's hat complete with potatoes, a captain's hat, and then one a tourist-trap had sold, which proudly displayed the words, "My parents went to Dubai and all I got was this lousy hat".

Eliot had to change the cork backing to his knife-board three times.

He was very careful not to completely ruin any of the hats, though.

He caved, finally, and took all but the most necessary security down, feeling naked as he sat at his kitchen table. Of course, old habits died hard; he sat with his back to the wall, and he was wearing at least four knives on his person, with another six within easy reach, should he need it. He waited, patiently, heart in his throat.

Parker heaved herself up over the railing to his apartment's tiny balcony, for all she had the key to his front door. In her hands was a hat that Eliot didn't recognize at first, an ordinary, dark and practical baseball hat.

It was one of the first hats that Eliot had ever seen Parker wear.

She smiled at him, wide and exuberant. With victory in her eyes, she tossed the hat onto the table. "That wasn't so hard now, was it?"

~*~

  
Eliot brought her stories of distant lands that surpassed Scheherazade's own One Thousand and One Nights.

She would curl up next to him whenever she was weary, on the cusp of sleep and so ready to fall into it, and let him weave tales for her ears alone. His voice would rumble through her body as his heartbeat did, and he'd gesture occasionally, strong slashes of movement that never quite managed to jar her from that slow, syrupy time between waking and sleeping. He never repeated the same story twice, but that was alright, because Parker remembered them all. He told her stories about how he learned to cook tikki masala, how he got the scar on his left ankle, how he taught himself the guitar.

Parker liked the stories about the guitar best, because Eliot would sometimes hum or sing a few bars to demonstrate his point, and it was a lullaby and a bedtime story all at once, and Parker just wanted to sink into Eliot's skin and never climb out.

It wasn't that he treated her as a kid, or anything, though—she liked hearing Eliot's stories as she fell asleep, but she'd survived years without them—but Parker needed them all the same. She didn't know how to steal the diamond-hard, glittering pieces of Eliot's life before their job, before the team, before her. She didn't know how to steal the bright and complex mind behind his words, behind his body.

So she had to wait for Eliot to give himself away, to paint the canvas for her, _with_ her, to turn the patchwork doll into a real boy. She had to be patient, and kind, and brave to hear the stories, had to let Eliot speak at his own pace and at his own time. Sometimes, if she was lucky, he'd tell her stories of them. Of how they became a _them_.

Parker realized, one night as Eliot's soft breaths echoed through her, that it all would have been worth rather less if she'd stolen any of it.

~*~

  
Parker tried, sometimes, to think of what a real family might be like. Whenever she did that, though, all she could think was those 50's picture-perfect families, with the smiling wife in a neat, elegant dress, the man coming home to a home-cooked meal, the daughter going steady with the boy next door, the son with the football scholarship.

It had looked a lot like Archie's home. She'd followed him back to his house, once, and only once. Looked at the neat white picket fence, at the warm greeting his wife had given him, the way he'd swung his children into the air with a brilliant laugh. It felt like she was watching a movie, not a real family. It looked...so boring. So ordinary. So small.

It looked like a death sentence.

So she didn't quite know how she had become part of a family now.

There was Nate, whose idea of coming home after a day's hard work was snoring on the couch in the middle of their offices with a glass of something alcoholic balanced dangerously on his chest. He might greet them all with a warm smile, but it always, _always_ reached his eyes. There was Sophie, who had turned the ubiquitous dress into a weapon and turned the phrase, "killer heels" into something spectacularly more literal. She was far more likely to order someone else into the kitchen than step inside herself. There was Hardison, whose idea of a sport was playing one on his Wii and if he ever received a scholarship that didn't include the words, "computer", "science" or "technology" with it, Parker would laugh herself sick.

Then there was Eliot. Eliot, who was far more likely to punch the boy-next-door type than to be him. Eliot might have a certain southern-gentleman charm, but that didn't stop how dangerous he was from shining through. It was something in how he carried himself, the casual confidence, the belligerent glint in his eyes. Parker couldn't imagine him coming up to the door, greeting her parents with a smile and a hearty amount of respect before promising to have her back by nine on a Friday night. The mere thought of it made her go cross-eyed, brain protesting. And yet—

And yet.

And yet they fit together so naturally, all of them, like there had been a part of them left waiting and wanting to tie themselves together like this, the red string of fate whispering in their ear. By all rights they should have left after that first job, when their mission was done, but they'd taken the laughter and the irritation and the discomfort and the insecurity and the kindness and forged the invisible links between them.

Parker thought sometimes that she ought to regret it. She liked tangible things because they were easy. Stealing was easy, art was easy, money was easy. People were so hard, with their eyes saying yes when their mouths said no, with their needs and their casual cruelty and their impatience with the world around them. Parker didn't understand their touches, their looks, the unspoken language that everyone seemed to know but her, like she was staring at the world's only uncrackable safe.

She should regret having been tamed, been made into something new and different and strange. She should regret all these new things that frustrated her and exhilarated her and irritated her and astounded her. She should regret that she couldn't even see the bonds to break them, to shatter them into a million pieces, to tear herself free to fall or fly as she chose.

Instead, she curled herself a little closer to Eliot, letting Hardison's words run over her like water, washing her clean, while the scent of Sophie's perfume steadied her and Nate's smile awakened her. Parker glanced at Eliot out of the corner of her eye, watching as he gazed at her in turn, the invisible weight of his eyes filling her up from the inside out. She needed them, all of them, as they needed her. She knew that in her heart of hearts.

That was all that mattered. After all, one sees clearly with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.

~*~

  
At first, Parker thought it was some sort of unspoken test.

Eliot would ask her, in his gruff, I-don't-really-care, awkward way, whether she liked soup, or whether she preferred green beans or broccoli with turkey, or if she was allergic to anything _else,_ thanks for the heads up about the strawberry thing, really, what was _wrong_ with her?

She didn't really give a straight answer at first, trying to figure out what answer he wanted—wasn't soup only for sick people, and green beans and broccoli were both icky, and how was she supposed to know when she hadn't eaten strawberries in years?

That last one gave Eliot that pinched, closed-off look he got sometimes after she told him things about her, like he was sad and a little bitter. The tightness always eased when she kissed him, though, and she loved kissing Eliot, all rough heat and tangling limbs, so that was alright. Eliot kissed like he fought, with single-minded dedication and an unwavering focus that made Parker understand what people meant with the phrase, "going weak at the knees."

"There isn't a right answer to this, you know," Eliot finally said, his placidity only a veneer over the roiling frustration, as he put down his rolling pin with rather more force than was altogether necessary. "Like, I hate beets. They taste like..." he made a disgusted noise, "I won't eat 'em." He scowled at her. "Never have, never will. Especially not with oil and vinegar, because it tastes like someone tried to pickle candy."

Parker felt herself turn just a little green at that. She drew the line on messing with candy at deep frying it. "That's disgusting," she informed him. Eliot broke into a grudging smile. Then, more quietly, she added, "Food is food. Take what you can get."

Eliot gazed at her, mouth tight and muscles straining like he wanted to hit something, and turned back to the cookies he was rolling out. Parker sat opposite him, and made a game out of avoiding Eliot's attempts to smack her fingers away from the cookie dough before she could steal it. They were evenly matched, but Parker didn't mind. It was more fun that way.

She forgot about the conversation entirely until later that week, when Eliot set three little bowls in front of her. On the little corner table that Eliot used when it was just the pair of them, there were eight or nine different dishes sitting out, all in their own neat little platters or bowls. Parker stared at them, a little curiously; Eliot would never admit it, but he could be very prissy when it came to the presentation of his food. Parker thought it was amusing, sometimes, to steal a bowl or plate from a set, because Eliot would refuse to use it until all the missing pieces were back in place, often trying to threaten or bribe her into giving them back. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

"There's a type of meal in Spain, called tapas. It's like a whole bunch of different appetizers, and you can pick a little bit of everything to try it," Eliot explained when he saw her looking at the varied dishes. "In Cantonese, it's dim sum. For the Turks, it's meze. Most places have something like it—a type of meal where a multitude of different dishes are served, and you eat small amounts of everything, so you can enjoy all the different textures and flavors." Parker wondered what Eliot would say if she told him that when he lectured like this, he sounded just like Nate. She thought he'd make a funny protest, and almost said something, but she was hungry. Teasing Eliot could wait.

Eliot paused then, staring oddly over Parker's left shoulder, like there was something fascinating on the far wall. She almost turned to look at it, but the flush building in Eliot's cheeks was far too interesting to ignore. "So, I, uh, thought that...you know. We could—well, you could, really, but you know what I mean. Try some. We—you could try a little of everything. And tell me, you know, if you liked anything. If you did like anything, I mean, it's totally okay if you don't." He visibly stopped himself from saying anything more, staring at her like he was trying to telepathically read her response.

Parker grinned at him. "No strawberries?" she asked.

Eliot huffed out a laugh and shook his head, herding her over to the food as he promised, "No strawberries."

~*~

  
Afterwards, when everyone was safe, when Nate had shouted at her and then hugged her so fiercely her lungs threatened to pop, when Hardison had coughed awkwardly and pressed his warm body against hers, when Sophie had descended in a cloud of sweet smells and gentle touches and anxiety in her eyes, Parker went home.

Eliot was waiting for her.

"Why didn't you talk to us?" he asked as she stalked past him and threw herself onto the bed, curling up with her back to him, clutching her bunny in her hands. He wouldn't hurt her; Parker trusted that he wouldn't. Another thing she'd disappointed Archie in, this business of letting people build their lives inside hers. He sounded upset. Indignant. She thought the word, then rolled it around in her mouth for a moment; she'd heard Sophie use it at Nate, and it had tasted like frustration and confusion and warmth then, too.

"Indignant? Damn right I am," Eliot scoffed, and his voice was loud and harsh and echoed in her room. When he sat down beside her though, all graceful lines and heavy heat, he was deceptively gentle. So he wasn't too mad, just that sadness-inside-anger that had burned so brightly in the others. Disappointment. She tasted that word too, slow and thick and dark. Seeing Archie again had made her half-expect that they'd do that thing that Archie sometimes had done, with the tight mouth and fierce eyes.

"Disappointed?" Eliot echoed, sounding faintly surprised. There was a moment of silence before he admitted slowly, grudgingly, "Well, really, I guess. I just thought...you know, with...um, us, and everything...I just..." he shifted, probably running his hands through his hair. He did that, sometimes, when he was nervous and uncertain. She pressed a little closer to him. He let out a little sigh, hand coming down to brush her hair out of her face before smoothing over the plane of her cheek, rough, callused hands against her skin. "A workin' man's hands," he'd muttered awkwardly the first time they'd traced her body. Now, as then, she leaned into the touch.

"I just don't understand," Eliot confessed, and it was like all the other dark secrets he'd murmured against her skin, hers to keep, "why you didn't tell me. Tell us."

"Tigers die and leave their skin. People die—"

"And leave their names."

Eliot sat quietly, for a long time. So long that Parker almost thought he'd fallen asleep, or she had. Or maybe this was all a dream. Then he shifted, long and slow and sinuous, curving his body to hers, forehead against the nape of her neck. "Did he give you your name?"

"Philippe. Archie. Rebecca. Kingston. Erik. Rosencrantz."

It took Eliot a minute to work it out. "Parker."

"All the great ones. The ones who were never caught, who left the greatest mysteries. The ones with the power, the ones who had mastered the skill and turned it into an art. The ones that no one knows, that no one will ever know, except those who matter. He told me I would leave my name behind and that my greatest achievement of all would be stealing their names from them. Stealing their skins." She wrinkled her nose. "I don't even _like_ tiger skin."

Eliot's breath went unsteady behind her, but she didn't move, just kept staring out at the far wall. He would do this, sometimes, slip behind her and his breath would go unsteady and maybe a little damp, his fingers rubbing slow, steady paths against the curve of her waist. "You're you, you know," he whispered fiercely. "Whatever you call yourself. Whatever we call you. It—it doesn't matter. It _doesn't_."

At that, she did turn, finally. She looked at him, taking in the soft flush of his cheeks, the way a stray strand of hair was curling slightly, the blue of his eyes and the way he was gazing at her, unbowed and so very dangerous.

"I didn't steal it from them, though," she confided in a quiet voice. "I just made it mine."

Eliot looked at her with something akin to happiness. "I know," he said simply, and kissed her.

~*~

  
They tried to stitch themselves back together.

They were a series of patchwork pieces and ripped seams, exposed and wanting to the open air, waiting for the hope to shatter, waiting for the inevitable betrayal, waiting for the knife in the back that crosses the heart and makes them hope to die. They were Raggedy Ann and Andy, made of worn cloth and unraveling yarn with their dreams escaped through loose threads.

They tried to weave in the loose ends, tried to keep it all from falling apart, tried to prevent the mess in their heads and in their hearts, the night terrors and ghost voices and cold touches, from tearing open the gossamer-thin spider webs of hope that transversed the cracks. The memories, the bad ones, sometimes threatened to overwhelm, the stuffing creeping out until one day they were left with little more than an empty shell and black button eyes.

It was the hardest thing they'd ever done, sometimes, to look in the mirror and see a person.

And one day, maybe she'd grabbed his hand, or maybe he'd grabbed hers, and the gossamer strands thickened, beading with light that held smiles in its heart, and kind voices and kinder touches—the good things, the home things. A kiss kept the weft and weave tight; a glance turned black buttons into the most brilliant of blues; a laugh knotted a stitch. She gave up a warm-sweet memory to replace some stuffing, he gave up a deep-sharp song to weave shut their wounds. They were a series of patchwork pieces in bright colors and brighter stitches, waiting for the sunlight, waiting for tomorrow, waiting for the touch that would blossom into something that looked a lot like, "I love you."

They stitched each other back together.


End file.
